There is a segment of the technical services business sector that deals with providing independent, “third party” testing and certification of a broad range of consumer and commercial products. Test standards and certifications for these products range from verification-of-product-origins to compliance with product safety specifications and environmental impact potentials. Product test standards and certifications are required by many governmental laws, regulations, or codes before some products can be installed for use or even being offered for sale in some jurisdictions.
Typical product testing is provided by laboratories accredited by appropriate jurisdictionally specified and approved agencies for performing the specialty types of testing required for the product. A new product model or design is submitted by its developer to the laboratory where tests are conducted in accordance with prescribed test standards or in accordance with specific standard scientific and engineering experimental methods. If a product meets the specifications prescribed by a test standard and/or the applicable laws, regulations, or codes, the laboratory certifies the results. Laboratory certification of a product is most typically conveyed by written documentation, laboratory-controlled trademark labeling, product specification literature, and/or published information in product user manuals.
It is common practice for product developers in the United States and Canada to have their own laboratory testing facilities with all of the appropriate equipment and expertise for performing many and sometimes all of the applicable test standards their new products have to meet. This way, the developer can perform their own testing to be certain a new product will pass the required tests before it is submitted for accredited, third-party testing, and certification. Because these developer-owned laboratories are fully equipped with appropriate test equipment, it has also become common for the third-party accredited laboratory to send a test-engineer employee of the third-party accredited laboratory to the developer's laboratory for conducting product certification testing. This practice, where the third-party accredited laboratory provides the test-engineer employee and the developer provides the fully equipped laboratory facilities for product testing and certification has become known as “witness testing”.
A drawback of present witness testing programs is that they require the “witness” test engineer to be physically present to verify the setup and the conduct of the test, and to sign off on all results. This can entail expensive travel. This can also entail expensive delays in testing, as a customer may have to delay testing until the witness test engineers are available, which can lead to increased development costs and delays in introducing products to market. If any problems are encountered in test setup or preparation, then this might require that the witness test engineers prolong their stay at the test location, again increasing costs. Conversely, if the witness test engineers are unable to extend their stay at a test location when problems are encountered, due to conflicts with other scheduled testing or other reasons, then the entire testing program might have to be delayed until the witness test engineers can return. Again, these testing delays can cause delays in product development and introduction into the market with consequently significant cost penalties.
Creating a witness testing system that permits witness test engineers to monitor all aspects of the test procedure from their own desks on a computer would avoid most of the need for traveling to and from test sites, thus saving traveling expenses and time. A witness testing system that permitted such a virtual presence would also minimize costs incurred due to problems encountered in the testing program, since witness test engineers would not be required to stay at a test site while corrections are made, and they could more easily reschedule the testing program.